I’m repulsed by a glamorized perspective of the world and prefer the harsh social reality of Nan Goldin’s photographs. I am attracted to work by Barbara Kruger, Ryan McGinley and other conceptualists, who portray society so simply and stirringly. I love criminal television shows and behavioral psychology: the prevalence of experience in the shaping of personality. I find inspiration in photojournalism and my own candid observations of body language. This outward interest in humanity makes me feel like I have so much to say, with so little experience and time.

 

My creative process is also spontaneous and this leads to inconsistent success with my pieces. I originally had difficulty with my work being mostly digital, given the fact that the themes I explore are so heavily tactile. I overcame this by drawing photographs, giving them an exaggerated interpretation. Scale is really important in my work as I aim to overwhelm a spectator, the same way my emotions tend overwhelm me and the people close to me. When people view my work, I’d like them to connect on a personal level.

 

When I work with faces, I am reminded of our collective struggle to express emotion. A notable theme of my work, initially discovered in Christopher Wool’s work, is the inability of language to capture emotion, the futility of words relative to other forms of expression. His text piece, “No More Home,” makes me feel hollow inside.

 

Quiet Riots is an attempt to illustrate these frustrations, which can never fully be understood or communicated. The pressures imposed by fear and inter-personal tension are felt by everyone. My pieces are the result of trying to understand my own stressing fears, and a translation of my social observations into artwork, becomes a way of coping with my over-sentimentality.